‘Posver happens to be a very useful source of information,’ said Helena. ‘I’ve known the poor man ever since I was a watchman fourth class. Most people think he finds his omens at the bottom of a bottle of cheap drakesbreath, and that certainly isn’t untrue, but it’s also not the whole story.’

‘I suppose people are less guarded around a broken down old drunk,’ said Grange. ‘Ne’er-do-wells speak things they shouldn’t in his earshot, no doubt.’

‘They do, and actually that helped us crack that smuggling ring in Forges a few years ago, but there’s more. Foolish as it may sound, Grange, Old Posver knows things.’

‘Captain?’

‘It’s only been a handful of times, but when bad times have been on the way in the past, Posver has seen them coming. Oh, of course he rants about a new doom each turning and most of it is drunken nonsense. On the other hand, he saw the orruk invasion from the dust planes three weeks before the greenskins hit our walls. He was ranting about the Cult of the Twisted Hand before any official investigation discovered them, so loudly in fact that they gave themselves away in their attempt to silence him! Strangest of all, it was Posver that put me onto the trail of the Grey Ghoul. I’d never have tracked that child-snatching monster down without Posver’s rambling insights.’

‘The man hears things, sees things, is sharper than he looks,’ allowed Grange. ‘But to say he sees things?’

‘An hour ago, you were willing to consider the possibility of dark magic or some form of curse afflicting Draconium, but you baulk at the notion of an old drunk also being a legitimate seer?’ asked Helena. ‘Careful, Grange, your prejudices are showing.’

Grange set his jaw at the sharp rebuke and followed her in silence, through a network of cobbled streets and down to Fountains Square.

The square was huge, a place for grand markets to bustle and armies to muster. Already it was lively, city folk patronising the businesses around its edge or drifting across it in small groups. Several raised flowerbeds broke up the cobbles, artful arrangements of sparkblooms and ashenpines rising from them. At the square’s heart stood the huge marble-and-gold mass of Sigmar Triumphant, depicting the bearded God-King brandishing his hammer, Ghal Maraz, above the shattered carcass of a monstrous Chaos daemon. Water rushed from the horns of lightning-wreathed cherubs around the fountain’s base, cascading down through three stepped pools before flowing away along a deep channel cut through the stones of the square. That was the source of the Hammerhal Canal.

Sat beside it, dangling his crooked old feet in the water, was Posver.